


You May Tire of Me

by thisisthefamilybusiness



Series: Both A Beginning And An End [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Coma, Family Drama, Father-Daughter Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Mentions of Possible Character Death, Mindfuck, Murder Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisthefamilybusiness/pseuds/thisisthefamilybusiness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Selfishly, Abigail almost wishes Will had died in that stupid car accident, because it would have been less cruel to them. Then they wouldn't have had to play pretend with this ghost of her dad, and act like everything was fine when it so clearly wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You May Tire of Me

**Author's Note:**

> A short little snippet that takes place somewhere in the middle of 'As The December Sun Is Setting', as this 'verse just wouldn't leave me alone and I wanted to resolve some of the leftover plot threads. The titles for everything in this 'verse has come from Death Cab for Cuties' 'Brothers on a Hotel Bed.'

Abigail knows she's lucky. 

She does, she really does. Both of her fathers love her and have good jobs, and she can call Alana whenever she wants to. She has a beautiful big house and acres of woods around it to explore. She has a closet full of lovely clothes and a car of her own, and her papa helped her get in to art school in Paris next year, and she's never wanted for any material thing in her life. It could have been so different for her, she knows. 

But the man wearing her dad's face isn't her dad, sitting at his place at the dinner table and trying to act like he belongs there. 

She shouldn't be resentful, she shouldn't be so upset. At first, the doctors had said he was going to be comatose for the rest of his life, but she and Hannibal sat at her dad's bedside night after night, brought him flowers and played him music and read him books and told him stories and held his thin clammy hands and pressed kisses to his pale forehead and combed his hair, and at night, when Abigail knew her papa was sleeping, she would fold her hands together and mumble prayers learned from her friends' more religious parents in secret. And then Will had woken up, and it was supposed to be her miracle. It was supposed to be the answer to all her whispered prayers. 

But the Will they'd brought back from the hospital wasn't her dad, didn't remember them at all, and Abigail wonders if she did something wrong in all those prayers to deserve this.

Abigail stops calling Will ‘Dad’ or ‘Daddy’. Her dad is still sleeping peacefully in the eternal quiet whiteness of his hospital room; this man isn’t her dad. He’s just a man named Will.

She's been so lucky all her life; there's no reason for the anger that wells up in her stomach when she wakes up the morning after they take Will home. It felt like this was some cruel joke: she could have her dad's voice and body but not his mind or memory, or she could not have him at all.

* * *

 

Abigail notices that her papa has given up pulling out the big black photo albums for Will after they think she's gone to bed. He used to sit there and ask Will if he remembered anything (the answer was always a whispered "no"), and tell all the stories behind the pictures, but while her papa is usually a master of hiding emotions, Abigail is his daughter, and she can see the sadness in his eyes as they stare at their pictures. 

Now, her papa retreats to the bedroom he doesn't share with Will any more as soon as the dishes from dinner are clean and drying in the dish rack, and Will takes the albums off their shelves by himself and looks at the pictures, like glaring will somehow bring back his memories. 

Selfishly, she almost wishes Will had died in that stupid car accident, because it would have been less cruel to them. Then they wouldn't have had to play pretend with this ghost of her dad, and act like everything was fine when it so clearly wasn't. 

* * *

 

She pulls a photo of her papa and dad sitting on the porch swing of a beach house from her pocket and drops it into Will’s lap wordlessly.

“You should be in bed, Abigail,” he chides quietly, but he doesn’t move from where he’s sprawled on the blue couch, Winston at his side.

“You and Papa go to Sugarloaf Key for your anniversary every year in Florida. Your anniversary is in five weeks.” It’s only a small peace offering, but Abigail was tired of seeing the hurt in her fathers’ eyes and the constant quiet sadness in her papa’s voice.

“Oh.” Will glances at the photo and studies the way Hannibal looks just as composed in khakis and a white button-up as he does in a three-piece suit. “Thank you.”

Abigail folds herself in to the plush black leather armchair across from Will. She purses her lips, tilts her head to the side thoughtfully. “What was I like, in your dream?”

He laughs shakily. “I don’t really want to answer that, Abigail.”

“I’ll tell you about any memory you want.” She bats her lashes, once, twice. “Please?”

Will caves with a long sigh. “Your name was Abigail Hobbs, and I—I killed your father, in my dream. Garret Jacob Hobbs. He was a serial killer, killed a lot of girls, and... And he impaled them on these deer antlers—he was a hunter, so were you—so they called him the Minnesota Shrike. I worked with the FBI, to help catch him—and I ended up shooting him, because he killed your mother—not Alana, you had a different mother—and he cut your throat, and I thought you were going to die too, but Hannibal saved you. You were in a coma for a while, actually, afterwards, but you woke up, and Hannibal and I, we were... We were going to adopt you.”

“I’ve never even been to Minnesota,” Abigail whispers.

He smiles. “I know. I know. And thank God.” 


End file.
